Primary

Creativity

Is your child ready for school?

Primary: 2 1/2–6

Children of this age possess what Dr. Montessori called the Absorbent Mind. This type of mind has the unique and transitory ability to absorb all aspects physical, mental and spiritual of the environment. As an aid to the child’s self-construction, individual work is encouraged.

Practical Life exercises instill care for themselves, and for others. The activities include tasks children see as part of the daily life in their home washing and ironing, doing the dishes, arranging flowers, etc. Through these and other activities, children develop muscular coordination, enabling movement and the exploration of their surroundings. They learn to work at a task from beginning to end, and develop their will, their self-discipline and their capacity for total concentration.

Sensorial Materials are tools for development. They do this by touching, seeing, smelling, tasting, listening, and exploring the physical properties of their environment.

Language is vital to human existence. The environment provides rich and precise language.

“When the children come into the classroom at around three years of age, they are given in the simplest way possible the opportunity to enrich the language they have acquired during their small lifetime and to use it intelligently, with precision and beauty, becoming aware of its properties not by being taught, but by being allowed to discover and explore these properties themselves. If not harassed, they will learn to write, and as a natural consequence to read, never remembering the day they could not write or read in the same way that they do not remember that once upon a time they could not walk.”

Geography, History, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Art and Music are presented as extensions of the sensorial and language activities. Children learn about other cultures and this allows their innate respect and love for their environment to flourish, creating a sense of solidarity with the global human family. Experiences with nature inspire a reverence for all life. History is presented to the children through art and an intelligent music program.

Children learn and understand mathematical concepts by working with concrete materials, providing the child with traditional mathematical principles and a structured scope for abstract reasoning.